Women at Meta are paid less than men and they have fewer high-paying posts too: Report

It was women’s day on March 8, and like all other companies Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp's parent company Meta also joined the bandwagon in celebrating women. The company posted four pieces of advice by the women community at Meta on what inspires them.

Perhaps the only piece of advice the software giant should publish is how women at its company can make as much money as men. This is because the recent gender pay gap report for Meta's U.K. and Ireland divisions highlights that female employees are paid less than their male counterparts. This holds for both hourly and salaried positions.

Further, men receive the bulk of high-paying job roles in the U.K. and Ireland divisions at Meta, which has headquarters in London and Dublin, and the company also gives women employees lesser bonuses.

The gender pay gap was highlighted by the report as it mentioned that for the typical hourly salary for a male employee at Meta U.K. is £1 while a woman earns 92 pence as pay.

Women receive 34.8 percent less bonuses on average at Meta than men do, and they hold less than one-third of the highest-paying positions.

Further the gender pay gap at Meta U.K. has been getting worse with increasing years as women were paid on average 0.9 percent less than men in 2018, when Meta released its first report on gender equality.

Cut to 2020-2021 women received 2.1 percent less income than an average man at Meta U.K.

When it comes to Meta's Ireland business the gender pay gay is wider.

Women working across Meta in Ireland were paid 15.7 percent less on average than men in 2022, according to a report that was secretly released in December as part of a new law that took effect in Ireland the previous year.

The disparity in bonus compensation in the nation is even more severe, with the average bonus given to women being 43.3 percent lower than that given to men.

“We have more men than women working at Meta in technical roles, particularly senior technical roles,” the company said in a statement:

The company in an investor relations update further explained that the pay for those with these “skills” are higher than for “non-technical roles” and that “the pool of this talent, particularly for more senior positions, continues to be predominantly male.”

“This is a challenge faced by all companies in Tech and by many companies in other industries. We recognize that this is a journey, one we are fully committed to and believe the actions we are taking now are, and will continue to have impact on improving the diversity of our workforce,” Meta added.

While the majority of the company's staff is based in the United States, which exempts businesses from having to disclose pay gaps, Meta also has around 3,000 employees in Ireland and about 5,000 in the United Kingdom, accounting for about 10 percent of its total global workforce.

In the report, Meta also expressed its goals for having underrepresented minorities and women make up 50 percent of its global workforce.

Women now make up 37 percent of the workforce as of last year, a 1 percent increase since Meta started releasing its diversity report in 2018.

Meta also mentioned that it plans to address the under representation through hiring, including its Diverse Slate Approach, and by reviewing and assessing its Attract strategy.

“Last year we established an External Partnership model comprising three flagship partnerships: ColourinTech, Everywoman and BYP (Black Young Professionals),. All these partnerships result in a steady increase in the hiring rates of underrepresented candidates, and we have seen increases to female representation at Meta, including in technical roles and in leadership roles." said Meta.

When it come to tech industry as a whole it’s a very male-dominated field. Data by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) suggests that about 77 percent of the 12 000 R-based software packages created during the period 2012-17 were produced by teams composed of only men. Women-only teams accounted for a mere 6 percent of such packages.

As per data by OCED, men have been better endowed with these skills, so commanding higher wage returns in digital-intensive industries; hence the gender wage gap (the wage difference between men and women) is globally higher in digital compared to less digital-intensive industries. Hence educating women and upskilling them with digital innovations becomes the key to bringing change.